Friday, September 23, 2011

I Have a Lot to Answer for On Judgment Day.

I
used to kill animals for a living.

Got
your attention, right? There’s probably some journalistic name for that. Tag
line, or something? What the hell do I know. I’m not a journalist. Although
that would kind of be an awesome job. But only if I could say “I’m with the
press” a lot, and if I got to wear a fedora.

I
worked at a humane society for two years in my twenties, and, among other
things, one of my duties was putting animals to sleep. I think this may have
led to my jaded worldview. It’s hard to be all unicorns and rainbows when you
have to give ten perfectly good dogs a shot that puts them permanently to sleep
and they die in your arms, and then you have to move on to culling out the
cats.

If
you say this to someone, they look at you like you're a Nazi. They get big,
scared eyes, like you might be concealing a death syringe in your blouse. They
say, "how could you KILL the BABY ANIMALS?" I didn't slaughter them
with a chainsaw or a club. I put them to sleep, quickly and humanely, so there
was room for other animals in the cages. It was not something I enjoyed. I can
honestly say there wasn't an employee there who was twisted enough to enjoy
that part of the job. The main reason I had to do this? Because dumbasses kept
either abandoning or not spaying their pets, and because people would rather
adopt an inbred puppy-mill mall pet than an awesome shelter rescue.

Surprisingly
enough, I loved working there. I got to work with animals, was the main reason.
Yes, I had to put them down – sometimes daily, sometimes weekly – but I also
got to play with them every day, and adopt them out to good homes, and reunite
lost pets with their owners, so that was enjoyable.

I
started out as a kennel employee and worked my way up – well, that’s really not
the case, it wasn’t my can-do attitude that did it, it was the fact that people
with more seniority quit – to front desk over the course of my employment. Each
position had its pros and cons.

Kennel
employee. Pros: more contact with the animals. More time to loaf around and
chat with fellow employees. Cons: more “blue room” duty (that was the name of
the room where we put the animals down – the whole room was, for some reason I
never was able to ascertain, painted blue. Hence the name.) More cleaning of
poo.

Sidebar.
Poo. Oh, the poo. SO MUCH POO. The animals weren’t often in the best shape when
they came to us. We were the only shelter in the county, so we got all of the
animals – sick, healthy, stray, what-have-you – and often, the animals weren’t
well. And this led to messes. Which we had to clean up constantly with hoses.
And I was often covered with poo, so I’d have to hose myself off. Yes, I know.
Glamorous! You didn’t really bother so much with “looking nice” when you went
to work there because what was the point? There would just be poo, later. Poo
everywhere.

Front
desk employee. Pros: less poo. More time to sit and relax and read. More
errand-running. More time to chat with the payroll clerk, who I really enjoyed
talking to but who only worked in the front desk area. Cons: more chances to
get bitten by animals who were freaked out by getting checked in by their
owners (you’d think it would be the other way around, but I actually got bitten
more as a front-desk employee than as a kennel worker.) More interaction with
the public, who were 60% assholes and 40% nice.

I
also got to have a gigantic bunch of keys, like a prison warden, so that was
kind of impressive. I'm pretty sure this cements my total badassery for all
time.

The
people who came into the shelter could be broken into the following:

People
who wanted to adopt, and were lovely, and left happy.

People
who lost their pet and were despondent and nice and I felt bad we didn’t have
it.

People
who lost their pet and were angry, as if it was our fault we didn’t have it.

People
who lost their pet and were there to pick it up and were happy we’d found it.

People
who lost their pet and were there to pick it up and were furious they had to
pay to get it back.

People
who wanted to volunteer and were nice about it.

People
who wanted to volunteer but had a hidden agenda, like condemning us for being a
“kill” shelter.

People
who were crazy. (Cat lady on The Simpsons? Pretty sure modeled after a shelter
customer we had.)

Very stupid people who asked for things like "baby kittens - like, one week old? These are TOO OLD."

Thieves.

The
nice people were outnumbered by the jerky ones, who were always there. They
wanted to yell at us for killing animals (but they didn’t want to take any off
our hands to alleviate the overcrowding that caused us to have to put animals
down in the first place.) They wanted to harass us for charging them money for
things like licenses and shots and adoption fees. They wanted to adopt pit
bulls to fight them and they didn’t want to get them fixed, which was mandatory
at our shelter, and when we refused on both grounds, they wanted to fight us
about it. (Seriously. One guy asked me if I wanted to “take this outside.” Um,
not really? What are you going to do, sic one of your other dogs on me?)

We
had a handful of people who stole animals right out of their cages and ran out
the back door with them – their own pets, because they couldn’t afford to get
them back, or animals they wanted to adopt. We ended up having to lock the
animals in their cages, it got so prevalent. We had a woman who did a
super-secret “expose” about the shelter and our practices and put it in the
paper and THAT brought the kumbaya people out of the woodwork for almost a
month. (There was nothing wrong with the shelter or our practices. We had to
accept every animal that came in the door. Because of that, we had to put
animals down. We had a finite number of cages. There is nothing confusing about
this. We treated the animals well, we were kind to them, and ask anyone who
works at a shelter where there is overcrowding, euthanization is a sad, but
necessary, fact.)

There
were exciting moments. One year, there was a rabid skunk outbreak in the
county, so the animal control officers had to set up skunk traps all over the
county and bring us skunks, which we then had to put down with a syringe
attached to a long pole and send off to be tested. At least once a day, one of
my coworkers would come in, all, “Have to go home, got sprayed” and we’d be a
man down as they tomato-bathed the smell away (it never completely went away.)
Once someone brought us a buzzard they found by the side of the road and I got
to feed it hamburger meat. Once we got to take care of a horse. Once we got to
pull porcupine quills out of a doped-up dog who kept trying to bite us but was
so drugged he was moving as slow as a sloth so we could avoid his slow, slow
jaws. We also had, over the course of my employment, chickens, rabbits,
ferrets, snakes, birds, fish, and raccoons.

We
had court-case dogs on lockdown in a back room – dogs that were being held
while their fate was decided by a judge. We’d have them for anywhere from ten
days to almost a year. We all fell in love with a German shepherd who’d killed
a goat and were all rooting for him, until the court ruled in favor of his
destruction. All of the shelter employees, who’d been taking care of him for
the better part of eight months, crowded around him as we gave him his shot,
and all five of us, who, just to look at us, were kind of badasses, bawled our
eyes out.

Another
dog being held was a lab-pit mix with amber eyes. He was the most beautiful
dog. And protective, and sweet, and very intelligent. Unfortunately, his
protective side had led him to bite someone, who was suing to get him
destroyed. One of my coworkers – a quiet, tough guy with tattoos and a shaved
head – loved that dog. When the order came to destroy him, he said he’d do it
himself, and brought him into the room. My heart hurt. When, a couple weeks
later, that same coworker showed up at work with his new dog – a lab-pit mix
with amber eyes, but now, a different name - our eyes met. We never discussed
it again. As far as I was concerned, it was a different dog. A different,
loving, protective, sweet, intelligent dog, who acted like he’d known me for
the better part of a year.

I
was bitten a number of times, but never badly. Only on the hand, and only by
cats. Cats are mean! Dogs telegraph when they’re going to bite, usually. Cats
are snake-quick and have sharp little teeth. When we got bitten, we had to go
to the free clinic for antibiotics. It got to the point where they knew all of
the shelter employees by name over there. I was on antibiotics more than I
wasn’t. One of the hazards of the job, I guess.

People
were also a joy in that they’d do things like leave boxes of tiny kittens
outside our door in the middle of a winter night so that when we came in in the
morning, we’d have a box of dead kittens to deal with. Thanks! Apparently the
“Humane” part of the name escaped you when you decided this was a good idea. We
also got a dog someone had shot in the head and left for dead – somehow he’d
survived, and a very nice family adopted him – a dog someone had set on fire
who needed skin grafts, and a number of cats people threw out of the window of
their car at the shelter building and just peeled out of the lot. Just in case
you think the human race is on an upswing, go work at an animal shelter for a
few days.

Also,
in case you think this was a totally glamorous and high-paying gig? Minimum
wage, 10 hour days, no two days off in a row until you had seniority (it took
me almost two years to get the seniority to get the two consecutive days off,
and then I moved to another state, which meant giving up my plum time-off
position, dammit), no sick time, and vacation time only after you'd worked
there a year (and it was up to the discretion of the director if you could take
it or not, or when you could take it, after that.) None of us were there for
the glamour, I can assure you.

So
yes, I’m an advocate for adopting your pets, not buying them from a puppy mill.
I’m an advocate for spaying and neutering. I donate to animal-related
charities. I still go all smooshy when I see a big, tough pit bull being walked
down the street (contrary to popular belief? They are honestly very, very
sweet. We had more chow and small yappy-dog bite cases over the years than
pits.) I am fantastic with animals, but I also know the dark side of it all.
I’m very practical about it. Chalk it up to skills I have, but hope to never
have to use again: I can tell how old a cat is by looking at its teeth; I'm not
easily grossed-out by some of the nastier messes an animal can produce; I can
tell you what sex your kitten is with a quick peek; and I used to kill animals
for a living.

i don't even... wow. thank you for sharing this. you're a stronger woman than i. i understand how hard this must have been, but the fact that you stuck with such crappy conditions shows how much you actually care.

one of my besties (did i really just say 'bestie'?) was a vet tech for years. similar kind of thing and i know how hard it was for her.

I'm going to go home and hug my kittens. They were abandoned this past season, and a friend of a friend took them in. She takes them all in really. And raises them and adopts them out. And they are the sweetest, most loving kittens. I frequently wake up with little one snuggled against me. The big one (who is mine) waits until I get home, seeks me out, and then lives in my arms until bedtime if he can at all pull it off. He also sucks my fingers and purrs. It's adorable.

My dog came from the Humane Society. When I moved in with my then-boyfriend, I had to give her up, but my uncle took her off my hands. I know she's getting old (prolly in the 12-13 range now), but she's still happy and well-loved. I see her once a year or so when I go up to visit, and she still greets me like I'm hers. It's awesome.

My next dog with be a shelter dog if I can find one that isn't a chihuahua. Seriously, people... quit buying "fad" dogs if you have no idea what you are getting into. You create an unnecessary burden on the system, and it's great that your conscience is apparently clear, but fuck you. Someone like my dear friend has to deal with your bullshit, and it's HER heart that gets broken. And frankly, you're not anyone I want to know anyway because WHO THE HELL TREATS AN ANIMAL LIKE GARBAGE?

I'm not kidding. The first batch of kittens my babies' foster mom got this year was found IN A TRASH BAG in a parking lot.

Pigfuckers.

Go to your local shelter and get your pet there. They have damn near everything. And http://www.petfinder.com will hook you up with local agencies. If you can't keep one permanently, consider fostering a pet and helping it find a forever home so that people like my friend Amy don't have to kill it just to make space for even more abandoned animals.

Hear, hear!! It bugs me so much when people buy animals from breeders when there are so many pets that need homes. I totally understand if you want a certain breed for certain traits, but chances are, you can find said breed through a rescue.

And why do some people have such a hard time understanding who important spaying/neutering is? I mean, I understand the people that have trouble paying for it, but anyone else? They should have to keep every single puppy/kitten their pet generates. >:(

1. Voluminous blouse; safety cap on the syringe (VERY IMPORTANT; otherwise, you will stab yourself to sleep); employ the "hey, look over THERE at that THING THAT IS SHINY" ruse to draw the attention of your subject elsewhere. I mean, hypothetically, of course.2. Yes. Almost always. I was trying to think of a place this wouldn't be the case and am drawing a blank.3. They truly are. As we speak one of mine is trying to lay on the keyboard and render it useless.

Thank you for commenting! I love your comments and I love YOU. No, not you. Yes, YOU. But listen up, chumley. If you make a dumbass comment, I am not posting it. I allow pretty much everything, so if your comment does not show up? Assume it was too stupid for me to even contemplate posting. Assume it was SO STUPID that even READING it would, by extension, make the IQ level of my amazing and brilliant readers drop by 30 points and deprive them of their Mensa status. And we just cannot have that, can we. SO STOP, THINK, AND DO NOT BE A DOUCHECANOE.

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